Saturday, January 26, 2013

Don't Look In The Basement

Don't Look In The Basement Directed By SF Brownrigg (1973).

A cast of retarded crazies in a makeshift asylum include Sam the popsicle eating black man, Judge, Harriet the sad loony mom who thinks her baby doll is real, Allison the horny psycho and Dr. Masters. A fat bald lunkhead (or the Judge) accidentally kills the head doctor with an axe just in time for a psychiactric student to show up at the house looking for work and wondering where he's gone off too. A prunefaced lady with matted poodle hair is the first patient to scare the new nurse and soon all the others follow suit. All the bad acting is pretty laughable and I think supposed to be scary. The old poodle lady's tongue is mysteriously ripped out in the middle of the night (she's my favorite character!) She sticks around and makes hysterical sounds, shaking her head while the judge interprets what he thinks she says. The childlike black man Sam has huge features (the camera zooms in a lot) and all the wackiness is oddly compelling. The horny psycho tries to have sex with the telephone operator and pops out of the closet and sticks a knife at the camera lense. One maniac looks like the son of Danny Bonaduce and Kramer, he cackles alot. The prominent featured colors in Don't Look In The Basement are off yellow and poopy brown. The head psychiatrist (Dr. Masters) abused some of the inmates and is corrupt. You could edit together a shortened version of this film consisting of giant eyeball face shots, there are too many to count! There are also a lot of greasy nose shots. The music has a lot of flutes, table tapping and snare sounds. There is something sinister going on with the head psychiatrist, Scorsese would later use of the premise for Shutter Island. There's a wacky credit sequence not to be missed. This used to play at drive-ins along with Last House On The Left (Hallmark Releasing put them both out) and they used the same types of gimmicks to sell this pile of trash! Too avoid puking keep repeating It's-Only-A-Movie